Finding Home
by hahahano
Summary: What happened to Wilt when he ran away after his accident thirty years ago? How did he get to Fosters, and how was his life before he met Mac and Bloo? This is my first real fanfiction ever, I hope you like it! CHAPTER 1 REDONE!


**Authors Note: **So here's Chapter 1, all nice and rewritten. I hope its an improvment! And thanks for all the great reviews so far, you guys rock! I mean it!

I decided to change it because I got a sudden new idea about something involving his arm, and I just thought I should anyway so I could try to make it better.

So yea, again, this is my first real fanfiction ever, and the first time I've decided to do a big long story like this, and I'm still kinda nervous about it. But I'm glad people like it so far :)

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The colored leaves blew across the streets of the quiet neighborhood on a freezing autum day. The streets were empty, many stores were closed, the people preffering to stay huddled up in the warmth and safety of their homes, with their electrical heaters and hot cocoa, instead of brave the record low temperatures and frosty wind blowing around outside. Besides, there was no snow out. What fun was a cold day with no snow, no sledding, no skating, no snowball fights? Nobody thought it was really worth it. They could just sit in their wonderful little heated paradises all day and watch TV, or bake cookies or play games or whatever they liked to do on days like this, when the weather would not permit them outside.

They would make the most of this day, sheltered in their homes with barely a care in the world, their minds never bothering to wander off and wonder what was happening to those less fortunate than themselves.

Even with no snow, there was ice. It had frosted the previous night, and the frost had taken out some of the power lines, leaving some people powerless. So these people were stuck without a heater, or a TV, or hot cocoa. But even then, they could manage with their thick blankets, sweaters, and a good, old-fashioned fire.

Nobody knew, nobody cared, that there was someone else stuck outside in this weather.

The tall, red imaginary friend, wandering down the streets unnoticed, looking longingly at the warm houses, only able to hide behind a wall or building, sometimes even a tree when one of those icy, biting winds blew down the street.

He didn't have blankets, or cocoa, or a sweater, or even a thin jacket. Just a pair of long, dirty socks wrapped around his neck and shoulders, stained and crusty with dry blood.

On his face were two old wounds, a pair of deep gashes that often got torn open due to poor healing, and because of this, they had become badly infected. His eyes, perched on top of stalks that grew out of the top of his head, were pink and bloodshot, showing that it had been a long time since he had had a good nights sleep, and the one on the left was bent and crooked, bouncing a bit as he walked. He was also extremely skinny from starvation, looking like all of his fat and muscle had melted off of him and left a skeleton, a skeleton that wore a tight-fitting red outfit. Almost every bone in his body stuck out of his battered, badly bruised frame, perfectly visible under his skin. His limbs, already thin and lanky before, looked like nothing but sticks now, his legs looking like they shouldnt even be capable of supporting his small body, and his short, usually brilliant crimson fur was stained with dried blood, covering him in dark blotches that dulled his color, making him appear a more dark reddish-brown.

But what probably would have stood out the most if anyone was there to notice, was the clear abcense of his left arm. Instead, hanging limpy at his side, was a small, short, slightly bloodied stump, the end of it still opened up a bit, with some broken peices of bone sticking out of it, like it had been crushed.

Like the cuts on his face, the mangled part of his arm was infected, giving him an intense fever.

Now, with his condition at its worst, he could barely walk anymore. He often suffered dizzy spells from the pain of every step he took, and the fatigue of dragging himself around while he was sick.

It was nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive, that he had survived the last several months. Every day, every day after that fateful day, he had wandered around, not sure what he was doing, not knowing what he was looking for. He just walked, farther away from the things that he knew and farther into the unfamilar, eating whatever he could find, usually out of a dumpster, until he had absolutly no idea where he was. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, no home, nothing. Every night, he would sleep in a bush or an old junkyard, or anywhere he thought no one would find him. He would try to stay hidden when he went out to continue wandering around, not wanting anyone to see him as he was. Sometimes he wouldnt sleep at all so he could travel by nightfall or early in the morning when he felt too uncomfortable to travel in the daytime.

He often wondered how his life had managed to take such a bad turn and go so wrong. The day it happened, the day everything came crashing down, it seemed like such a normal day. Such a normal game. Such a normal match for him and his creator, neither one knowing that it would end in tragedy.

It was the pain in his heart that kept him going. It was greater than any pain he felt in his body, so great that it nulified everything else, made it feel insignificant and unimportant. It was what drove him to keep on going, the guilt of what he did, how he felt he betrayed the most important person in the world to him, how he tore him down and crushed his dreams that made him run on, run away and never look back.

And to tell the truth, he had done very well surviving this way at first. But eventually, he had gotten sick from the open wound at the end of his stump of an arm, and his poor diet had begun to take its toll as he began to notice that he was loosing weight. He started to pick up his various injuries, some from collasping from several sleepless nights, some from broken glass and other assorted hazards of dumpster dining, and even a few from some aggressive stray dogs.

And now, finally, he felt he couldn't go on anymore. His illness, his wounds, his exhaustion, they had all finally caught up to him, and he couldn't ignore them any longer. He felt he was slowly beginning to loose the battle for what was left of his torn up, pathetic life. It was like all he could do now was find a place to just lie down and wait to die.

Why had this happened to him? He had had such a happy life before, such a wonderful life. Everyday he had spent with his creator, bringing nothing but smiles to his face, giving a lonely little boy a reason to be happy, a reason to be proud. A reason to feel like he was wanted.

But what, he thought, had he gone an done? He'd turned his back and betrayed his little boy, right at the moment when he was needed the most. He'd let him down, failed him, and then run away. Some friend he was now.

Those happy days, they were long gone now. He might as well have forgotten what happiness felt like, now that his world was nothing but heartbreak and sorrow. He had given up on optimism, finding himself unable to come up with a way to say things would get any better. He was a sick, diseased wreck with nowhere to go on a freezing cold day with nightfall close at hand, promising to be far colder than the day had been.

As the sun slowly started to fall below the horizon, he found himself in a poorer part of the neighborhood. He walked slowly down an empty alleyway, laying himself painfully down next to a dumpster, half wondering if he would even wake up again if he fell asleep.

A strong gust blew, chilling and stinging him to the very bone. He instinctively pulled his legs closer to his body, tightening the dirty socks around his shoulders in a futile effort to feel even a little bit of warmth.

He watched the leaves blow across the cold concrete, occasionally jumping a bit or flipping over and blowing over his shriveled, bony figure.

And then, his vision was suddenly blotted out as something smacked into his one good eye.

Groaning a bit, he reached up and pulled it off, pausing to look at it out of curiosity.

It was a very old newspaper, dated sometime in last November.

How long ago that was, he didn't know. He had pretty much lost track over his travels, but he knew that it had been several months after November when...when he left. And then the weather had warmed up, and now with this cold front and the obvious fact that the trees were loosing their leaves, the paper could be almost a year old.

He didn't bother to read the headline or any of the text. His eye was drawn to the picture of a very unusual looking, Victorian-styled mansion. It was several stories high, lying behind a gated fence and with lots of open, undeveloped land around it, probably all owned by the same person.

And...it was orange. Or more specifically, it was a mix of bright orange, yellow, and red with a black roof, making it look like a large Halloween decoration.

Finally, perched almost comically on the very top of the house was a large, triangle shaped flag.

He couldn't help but smile a bit at the house's eccentric appearance. A bright orange Victorian mansion...who ever owned the house must have been very rich and very humorous.

He sighed sadly, the tiny feeling of amusement quickly vanishing as quickly as it had suddenly come. Taking a last look at the funny picture of the odd house, he leg go of the paper and let the wind take it from his hand, dismissing it as probably just an ad for a funny house for sale that had no doubt either already been bought or taken off the market for some reason.

As the wind carried the bouncing paper away, his right eye suddenly widened in horror. As it blew past his face, he thought he caught a glimpse of the words "foster home for abandoned imaginary friends".

Had that paper been more than just a house for sale? As he watched it blow down the street, he decided, yes, yes it was. It must have been. It said something about a foster home. _A foster home for imaginary friends._

What if it really had been? What if it really was about a foster home just for imaginary friends?

Then it dawned on him.

_I have to get that paper._

With a new energy he hadn't felt in a long time, he leapt to his feet and ran after the paper, ran like he hadn't run in a long time, fueled by his fear of loosing the paper.

The runaway paper led him out of the alleyway and back into the streets of the neighborhood, bouncing and sliding innocently across the road with the wind, with a horrified imaginary friend frantically pursuing it.

He couldn't believe he'd thrown it away. Why hadn't he noticed those words before, why hadn't he read the headline, why was he chasing a piece of paper like his very life depended on it?

_Maybe my life does depend on it. _he thought sadly to himself. _Come back here, you stupid paper!_

His heart nearly stopped when he saw the paper, probably his one chance of survival, blow near a storm drain.

He just about screamed right then and there. Not caring what happened, he dove for it, hitting the icy road hard and sliding toward the paper on his stomach, barely managing to grab it as it began to slip down the storm drain.

Sighing in relief, and feeling winded and even more exhausted than before, he sat down on the sidewalk under a street lap too read the article he'd thought was just an ad.

"New Foster Home for Imaginary Friends Opens." read the headline.

Before reading the article, he looked at the picture again instead and found a caption underneath:

"Opening its doors just a few days ago, Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends (named for its owner, Madame Foster) is a new foster home for lost or abandoned imaginary friends who need a good home."

Excited, his one good eye frantically scanned the article for an address and found it: 1123, Wilson Way.

He glanced up at the street sign; it pointed towards several streets, one of which caught his eye; Wilson Way, a few blocks away. So he wasn't very far away from this foster home!

He smiled weakly. Finally, he could tell himself things might actually get better.

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**Authors Note: **Again, sorry its kinda short. Reviews and crits greatly appreciated!

By the way...I've gotten a few reviews saying its out of timeline. And...yes, I guess it is. I came up with my own timeline theory based on the fact that Wilt showed up in every house photo in The Big Picture except the first, and that he was in those pictures before Frankie showed up, but now I just dont know.

One last thing, when I say Wilts got fur, I know he actually said himself that he doesnt. But I really had no idea what to describe the surface of his skin as, and I just decided to go with fur. The idea is that its very short and very soft. Ok? ;)


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